


That which is Falling should also be Pushed

by The_Reverend



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-01-11 21:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18432911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Reverend/pseuds/The_Reverend
Summary: Steve and Bucky are building a life for themselves after their shared traumas. But Steve's guilt and remorse collide with Bucky's withholding of information, leading to a confrontation years overdue. The aftermath leaves Steve distracted in the field, vulnerable. And there are always jaws waiting to snap at any crack in his armor. What follows will test the Avengers, Steve, and Bucky to the edge of sanity and beyond. At what point is it better to just give up? To make it all end by saying “Hail Hydra”?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinMan85](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinMan85/gifts).



> Title is from Death in June's "Hullo Angel"
> 
> Set in Marvel movieverse but not individually film compliant (i.e. who died when) so everyone could come out to play. A trash party's gotta have guests.

Chapter 1

 

Steve is railing him, hard, like they haven’t had the chance to for a bit, between missions and therapy and the team and  life.

 

They’re almost always touching each other 24/7 now, if they’re at all in the same room; making up for lost time, making sure the other doesn’t somehow slip away.

 

And they are definitely exploring the gift of sexual knowledge that comes with the future, applying Steve’s diligence and Bucky’s precision to experiment with everything they learn.

 

But they like to have a nice block of time if they’re gonna really get into it like this, so they can let go and have a half dozen orgasms each and break some furniture.

 

Sometimes Bucky will have picked out the replacement piece of furnishing before they’ve even broken the old one, and God is that hot.  Steve will watch him planning that poor thing’s demise and start to get amped up, knowing that Bucky’s plotting some super-soldier style fucking on and around that object soon, but not exactly how or when.

 

He hasn’t told Bucky he knows he does this, doesn’t want to jeopardize the process.

 

They’re on their bed, panting hard, Bucky on hands and knees with Steve’s big body draped over him.  They’ve already gone one round, quick, to take the edge off, and Steve is clearly planning on seeing how much abuse the bed can withstand.

 

His arms lock Bucky in place as he pistons into him with the force of a machine.

 

Bucky loves when they get like this, no holding back, throwing their strength at each other in a way they can only take because they’re enhanced.

 

And what were the odds, _what were the odds_ , that they would both end up enhanced, alive, and here, to do this?

 

Bucky grunts as Steve thrusts so hard he swears he feels it in his throat.

 

“Yeah? You like that?”

 

God, Steve had been so careful with him at first, afraid to be rough, and Bucky took perverse pride in driving the revered national icon to become an unhinged sex beast. Maybe he should suggest they update the display in the Smithsonian to mention Captain America’s unrivaled sexual prowess.

 

“Fuck, Steve…”

 

“Oh am I not fucking you hard enough? Let’s fix that.” Said national icon growls, before moving his hands to Bucky’s hips so he could pull back farther, almost all the way out, then slam back into him full force.

 

“FFuuu--” Without Steve’s arms locked on his, Bucky’s front half collapses, face in the mattress while Steve plows him relentlessly.

 

“That’s better.” Steve chuckles, having made him go wordless. “You close, Buck?”

 

“Yeah, hah-uh-uh-ah-fu-uh-uh-unh wha’ d’you think punk? Oh oh oh-”

 

Steve laughs again, a beautiful sound, and pulls all the way back, head caught just inside his rim. Then he stills.

 

“So, we should just end it here, right?”

 

“Hnnghhh! You fucker!” Bucky flails an arm blindly backward, slapping out at whatever parts of Steve he can reach. “Move, move damn you, c’mon, give it to me!”

 

“Well, if you’re sure….” Steve says with a shit-eating grin he can hear, and lets himself pop all the way out.

 

“Jesus! What’re you-” Bucky twists furiously to see, but before he can, Steve’s big hand pushes his head back down to the bed at the same time he plunges all the way back in, one stroke. Bucky screeches and there probably isn’t another person alive who can fuck like this, shit, he’s getting pounded and he’s going to come soon, and Steve shifts, fists his hand in his hair, and his knuckles press into the back of Bucky’s skull as he fucks him what has to be through the mattress.

 

The knuckles press and the grip on his hip tightens and it happens.

 

“Buck, God, I’m real close, you’re amazing, fuck, how do you wanna finish?” Steve grits out. His hips keep the pace, skin slapping lewdly. “You want me to stroke you or what?”

 

Getting no answer, he gathers Bucky’s hair into his fist and pulls his head up to look at him. “Tell me what you want, Buck, I’m-” He turns his face to read it, to kiss him, but he’s met with glassy eyes, slack jaw. “Shit, Bucky, fuck.”

 

He releases his head, which flops back to its previous position. Steve runs his hands down Bucky’s back.

 

He pulls out and scrambles around so he can face Bucky, who’s still holding position. “Talk to me Buck, what’s-”

 

The instant he rises to his knees in front of Bucky, he lunges and swallows down Steve’s still-hard cock.

 

“Bucky, no, Jesus fuck!”

 

Steve yanks his hair to pull him off but Bucky resists, sucking harder.

 

As soon as that familiar taste had hit his tongue, the tang of cock, ass, and lube, a switch had flipped on. He knew what was expected of him.

 

His body actually relaxes as he suctions onto Steve further, still unresponsive. Steve’s hands flail in total panic, he has no idea how to stop Bucky without hurting him; to let him continue feels obscene.

 

He tries to tug his head away, Bucky thrashes his head back and forth. “Okay Buck, Okay.” He soothes. He pets his hair and Bucky resumes sucking with a vengeance, like he has something to prove. Steve doesn’t want to think about that.

 

He clenches his teeth and tips his head back; apparently he has to ride this out.

 

He tries to think only of Bucky, push everything else to the side for now. They’ll figure this out. They always do.

 

He brings his head forward and strives to avoid Bucky’s staring eyes, to look only at his mouth, stretched around his cock. He’s always had a thing for Bucky’s pouty mouth, and seeing it wrap around his dick has never failed to get him off.

 

“I love you, Bucky.” He states firmly, in case anything is getting through to him. “I love you and I’m right here.”

 

He lets himself feel Bucky’s warm mouth, his tongue, the scrape of his teeth.

 

Bucky, it’s Bucky. Forget everything else.

 

Remember how grateful you are to have him. Remember how happy you are to have him like this.

 

So he pets his hair and watches those lips stretch wide, so pink, to suck him, Bucky’s mouth crammed full of Steve’s substantial cock and the sight still does it for him, he’d wanted it for so long.

 

Just as he’s about to come, Bucky shifts and Steve thinks he means to stop, but he sits back on his heels and angles Steve’s dick so he can work with his hands to ensure that Steve comes, all over his face.

 

Then he lowers his head and sits silently, as if waiting for something, small strings of come dripping slowly to the floor.

 

Steve clears his throat. What the hell does he do, here?

 

“Um, thank you, Bucky?

 

He looks up at him and squints, confused. “Did good?”

 

“Yes, Buck, you - you did real good. Do you think I could clean us up? Would that be alright?”

 

Slowly, Bucky nods, and takes Steve’s outstretched hand. He follows meekly to the bathroom where Steve gets them into the shower, begins cleaning Bucky gently, carefully.

 

He’s moved on to give himself a quick scrub when he hears Bucky cautiously say “Steve?”

 

“Yeah Buck, almost done.”

 

“H-how did we get here? I thought we were…” He trails off and scrunches his face up, looking baffled.

 

Steve sighs. “Let’s finish up here and get dressed, and then we can talk, okay Buck?”

 

“Okay Steve.” He agrees, though his stomach is churning with fear and turmoil.

  


\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Has this happened, before, Buck?”

 

“I don’t know...I don’t think so...no...of course not.”

 

But he won’t meet Steve’s eyes and he is done with letting Bucky lie to him.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ Bucky! That means that we- That I- You-”

 

Steve covers his face with his hands and crumples to sit on the edge of the bed.

 

“Look, don’t make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”

 

Bucky’s approaching him placatingly, but all the marks that Steve had just enjoyed putting on his body scream out to him like brands now.

 

“A _bigger deal -”_ Steve’s mouth works around words he can’t apparently form, before he tugs at his longer hair in frustration, punishment, grounding, pulling on both sides in a habit he unknowingly picked up from Bucky.  

 

Steve looks up at him with tears on his face and in his beard and he looks like a drowned golden retriever, shaggy and sodden.

 

“ _Bucky…”_ The word sounds like it’s forced from his mouth, pained and barely audible. _“I feel like I raped you.”_

 

“Steve, come on,” Bucky snaps harshly, running a hand through his hair, but stops when he feels the glare emanating from Steve. He hasn’t seen that level of pent up anger, recrimination, and self-loathing since Steve was tiny. “You don’t seriously think -”

 

“What else am I supposed to think?” Steve whispers, staring down at his big hands like they’re abhorrent objects, like he wants to cut them off.

 

Bucky sits next to him, carefully, Steve is really starting to scare him. He hadn’t been scared when the... _incident_...had happened, more like, he’d dissociated. But seeing carefully controlled Steve lose it like this is making his gut roil with dread.

 

“How many times, Buck, has it happened, that I didn’t notice?” He grits out.

 

“Stevie-” Bucky starts, touching his arm, but Steve shakes him off, exploding.

 

“HOW! MANY! TIMES!” He slams both fists through the glass and chrome coffee table, shattering it. Glass and blood fly everywhere, random crap that was on the table scatters around them, rolling to parts unknown.

 

Steve whips around, looking crazed. His teeth are bared, eyes red and wide, and there is snot and tears and glass in his beard.   _“Answer me, Bucky Barnes._ ” His voice is low and growling. _“How. Many. Fucking. Times.”_

 

Bucky can’t look away, Steve has him pinned by the force of his anger. His left arm crosses over his front, protectively. “Steve, I-”

 

Steve growls, actually growls, like a feral beast, and Bucky gulps and squeezes his eyes shut. “Two - at least two - maybe three, I….I don’t always remember -”

 

Steve is on his feet and his fist is through the drywall before Bucky knows what’s happening.

 

He looms over Bucky and Bucky flinches, and Steve gives him the most terrifying smile he’s ever seen. It reminds him of Zola, it’s all teeth and no warmth and only means bad things.

 

“See, afraid of your rapist.” Steve hisses and heads for the door.

 

“Steve, no! That’s not it at all! You need to calm down, talk to me, please!” He’s aware he’s lost all control of this situation, is pleading.

 

Steve does stop, hand braced against the door. His entire body is vibrating with rage, breaths heaving out of him.

 

“Steve?” Bucky takes a hopeful step towards him.

 

Steve pivots. “Don’t.” Bucky freezes.

 

“I can’t - “ Steve chokes. “I can’t be here right now.”

 

In that moment, he looks more like the Steve Bucky knows, weighed down by the world, carrying too much, and entirely, ineffably, sad.

“But you will,” Bucky asks, “you are coming back, right?”

 

Steve opens his mouth like he’s going to answer, grits his teeth, puts _his entire head through the wall next to the door,_ slams through the door, and leaves.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hours pass before Steve returns, not at all settled.

 

Bucky has spent the time cleaning up glass, pacing, being thankful they have the floor to themselves so he didn’t have to explain anything, pacing, feeling contrite, pacing, and working up a righteous anger.

 

He’s on Steve the second he comes through the door.

 

“Where the hell have you been?”

 

Steve attacks right back.

 

“Why? Did it feel shitty to get walked out on? Left behind? To not know where I was?”

 

“Is that what this is?  Are you getting revenge on me?”

 

“What would I have to revenge, Buck? That would imply that I had been wronged. We all know the only victim around here is you.”

 

Bucky gapes like a fish before he can respond. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means -” Steve shoves past him to enter the living room, a stray glass piece crunching under his boot.

 

“That Bucky Barnes thinks he’s a martyr. That he has to keep all his suffering and problems to himself. Even though he should know by now that it always backfires!”

 

“I’m a martyr? _I’m a martyr?_ Pal, that is like, your entire thing!”

 

“So I’m the one that’s been withholding, I dunno, some _vital information_ from my partner that could seriously affect our sex life? Our psyches? Our-”

 

Steve is ticking points off on his fingers like he’s gone into full lecture mode and Bucky is not having it.

 

“Oh yeah, Steve?” Bucky squints at him through a curtain of hair. “You sayin’ you tell me everything? You explain the nightmares I wake you up from? Or why I catch you just staring at nothin’ sometimes? Or why you still feel the need to beat the shit out of things on a near daily basis? You talk about that stuff with me? Or do we just ignore it and do our thing?”

 

“It’s not the same.”

 

“Bullshit it’s not! What makes it different? Because you’re the great Captain America and I’m nothing but the broken bits left of Bucky Barnes?”

 

“You know it’s not like that, Buck.”

 

“Then what is it like? Why do I gotta keep pulling and pulling my guts out for you to investigate, confessing every fear, every ghost in my head, while you keep yours all in? You got alotta baggage there too, pal.”

 

“Bucky, I know, I never said I don’t, that’s just it. I don’t want to add anything more to your burden, this is about you-”

 

“I thought this was about us!” Bucky roars, and Steve actually takes a step back.

 

Good. Let him be afraid. Bucky knows he shouldn’t be but he’s all keyed up and ready for a fight. And this has been a long time coming.

 

“Jesus, Bucky, you know it is, come on. I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”

 

“The right thing by who? Cos it’s a two way street, pal. You gotta let me help you too. Maybe I want to. Maybe I need to know what’s going on in that thick skull of yours. Maybe I don’t wanna feel like the only one who’s messed up here.”

 

Steve’s tongue is in his cheek and he’s shaking his head, back and forth, smiling a little wildly. “Bucky, have I ever, ever once, said that you were messed up? Or made you feel bad about doing something? Or not doing something? Or wanting me to leave you alone, for, like, days, then wanting me to do everything with you, for you?” Steve laughs then, and it’s a horrible sound, and he’s crying, and Bucky’s crying, and this is only getting worse, but he can’t stop now.

 

“Some days, you want to be wrapped up in me, and I love that, and the next, you don’t want me to even touch you, and, I get that Bucky, I really do, I understand. But, you give me whiplash here, emotional whiplash. I never know, each day, what kinda day is it gonna be, with Bucky? Is it gonna be a touching day? Am I gonna say the wrong thing, and set him off? Am I gonna move too fast, or be too big, or too strong, with this body, that I can’t do anything about, and scare him away?”

 

Bucky’s shaking his head, no. “No.”

 

“You’re telling me no? See, I don’t believe you and, hah.” Steve grips the back of his neck and looks to the ceiling. “I guess that’s it.” He drops his head and looks directly at Bucky. “I don’t believe you.

 

“I keep losing you and losing you, no matter what happens. You keep leaving. It’s not always your fault, I’m not saying that, but. You still keep leaving. You left me behind in Brooklyn. You left me in the Alps. You left me in D.C. You left me in Wakanda-”

 

“I didn’t want to hurt you, alright? That was the safest thing for me to do.”

 

“How do you still not get it!” Steve screams. “Leaving me behind is what hurts me! Shutting me out is what hurts me! You think _this,”_ he gestures fiercely between them, “is gonna hurt me? You’ve been _hurting_ me since at least 1930. So go ahead, get it out if it’ll help.You can’t do any worse to me than you’ve already done.”

 

Steve is enraged, and Bucky gets it, gets how it made him feel. He’s scared that he hurt Bucky and that he’s gonna keep doing it and that there’s nothing he can do to stop it. When Steve Rogers is scared or feels backed into a corner, he lashes out to fight the thing that scares him. Always has. Bucky knows this. So he tries, one last time, to head off the fomenting explosion.

 

“Steve, babe, listen, please. The - flashes - usually come and go quicker than that, so I didn’t see any need to bring it up. You got enough on your plate with everything, with _me_ , that if I tell you every little thing comes up like that…”

 

Steve grits his teeth. “That’s what you’re _supposed_ to do. I’m your _partner._ We face these things together. We work through them.”

 

He gives up and goes for first blood. “Then why isn’t it the same for you? You’ve been telling me you’re _fine_ since 1930 as well, so if I’ve been hurting you, you’re pretty good at giving it right back. You didn’t exactly say anything much about _feelings_ and _sharing_ till you started shoving your dick in me, now didja?”

 

Bucky gives him a smug look and Steve seems horrified for a moment before he visibly pulls himself together, turns to steel.

 

A dangerous grin settles on Steve’s face, and his teeth look sharpened somehow, glinting.

 

“We gonna do this, Buck? Now? Finally?”

 

He advances on him, All Captain America, like Bucky hasn’t seen since they last fought, for real.

 

Steve brings himself to his full height, no twisted spine, no stooped shoulders, no trying to make himself seem softer, and actually fucking cracks his knuckles and says, “Alright, Buck, let’s go.”

 

Bucky feels himself die in front of his eyes, his life flash -again, again- watching Steve’s beautiful face shift into this glinting, hardened mask. Then he remembers -ha, ironic - what he does best, and kills himself in advance, dissociates, and makes himself feel nothing.

 

He tries to be the Asset but the Asset never felt fear like this - “Yeah, Captain America, I guess I do wanna _go at it_.” And he lets the Russian inflection slip into his syllables just to see what it will do to Steve’s stupid face.

 

The shark grin widens and his eyes are glittering, dangerous, “Where would you like to begin, _James?”_

 

Steve tilts his head, serpentine, and his neck cracks. He hasn’t called him James in 80 years. The name is a salvo.

 

He beams back at him, at least he thinks he does, plumbing the reserves of the parts of himself that are Bucky. He scratches his stubbled chin as if thinking, goes full pantomime, what are they if not actors playing now, they are so far gone it physically hurts and yet he cannot stop now, he feels everything slipping -

 

He draws his thumb slowly through the divot in his chin and, yes, Steve’s eyes follow, and he’s the Soldier now on a honeypot mission, but what would that target be for Steve Rogers if not Bucky Barnes?

 

“We countin’ physical scores too, or’s this strictly a psychological reckonin’?” Now he unleashes full Brooklyn Bucky on Rogers, letting the drawl drip into his words.

 

“Don’t hold back on my account, Buck.” And. Goddamn, no wattage of smile can come close to Steve’s, and he’s deploying it fully. “I”m Captain America. Or did you _forget that too_?”

 

He finishes the last part with a fake pout and hangdog look and Bucky is growling and pushing him up against the wall by his neck before he’s formed a response.

 

“Let’s start at the beginning, then. Let’s start with all the fights I jumped into to save your ass from, or the shitty jobs I took to save your ass from itself so you wouldn’t just fucking die on me like some fainting heroine.”

 

He’s punctuating his words with his tongue against his teeth and his metal hand against Steve’s throat because, yeah, Captain America can still be choked out, and he just happens to have a metal arm, and there they go, _completing each other again_... he growls and looks down, at Steve’s wide open, purple lips, and the glare in his eyes, and wonders why he’s strangling him, again, and at the same time gets instantly hard. He lets go of Steve.

 

“--ucking kill you!” He rasps as his knees hit the floor and he grabs the Soldier’s ankle and yanks, and the Asset’s head connects with the floor with a sickening thwock and he needs to puke and his hearing comes back in as Captain America is standing over him and growling.

 

….”let’s get to the part where you stroll out on me! IN! Public!!” He’s pushing into his chest with his boot toes and...laughing? Crying? Emotions are hard for him to interpret, sometimes, still.

 

“Off to get killed, probably, but we couldn’t say goodbye properly, to avoid, _what_ , actually? A conversation? This one? We’re having it now?”

 

Rogers’ voice had gotten maniacally higher and he’s kneeling on the Asset’s chest with his full weight and his thumb is pressing into his trachea and now it’s Bucky’s turn to flail at Steve’s face and slap ineffectually.

 

“Just, walking off,” Steve says, casually, looking to the side like Bucky’s not seconds from blacking out. He removes his thumb and sucks it, for some reason, contemplatively.

 

…”So, then,” Steve continues, as if they've been carrying on a conversation, as Bucky heaves breath and then gets to his knees and lunges for him. They grapple.

 

“The next time I see you. The first time I’ve really fought, mind you. I just went in there by myself, you see. To find you or die trying.”

 

Despite the violence of their bodies, Steve’s words are all coming in that flat, conversational tone. Bucky’s gone back to basics, grunting and punching, but Steve lands a hard blow, literal  and emotional, between the ribs, taking them down to the floor.

 

He’d been so wrapped up, of course, in what had happened, the horrors of Azzano and the changes to Steve and The Weirdness he had felt growing inside him that he’d never stopped to think. Steve’s first act of war had been done alone, with no training, to save him or find his body or die with him. Captain America hadn’t rushed that Nazi base. Stupidly brave Stevie Rogers had. By his own fuckin’ self.

 

He zones back into their fight to Steve punctuating his words with punches to his face.

 

“And then. You wouldn’t. Let me touch you. You barely even. Looked at me.”

 

“Well, while you were playing chorus girl-” He flips Steve with his legs, holds him like a vice.

 

“Yes. They used me for propaganda first, which you never let me forget, why, exactly?  You did your time behind the iron curtain. Fist of Hydra? Jealous? Is it because my propaganda got attention and women and yours was secret and got you what? Scientists?”

 

His voice stays maddeningly conversational as they flip and tear at each other, Bucky grunting and heaving to keep up. Steve has never fought him when he’s fully conscious. In Winter Soldier mode there was a remove from the action, the pain. He’s had no idea of what Steve had been sitting on, in terms of strength and pain and emotion and repression.

Fuck, but it turns him on.

 

Bucky has to pull the from the depths of his buried emotions, but has to change the subject now. 

 

“How about we could have been fucking years ago if you’d had the guts to say anything before you were Mr. Perfect.”

 

“Oh, that’s right, _I should have said -_ the dames, Bucky, the endless parade of dames!” Steve snarls and twists them around so he can slam Bucky against the wall for emphasis. “How the hell do you think that made me feel, huh? Practically shoving my face in them -”

 

“Well one of us had to!!” Bucky bellows. D’you know how fucking queer we seemed already! Why the hell do you think I didn’t do anything? Steve, it killed me, it killed me every day. I did it for us and I hated it and all it did was get you angry at me!

 

“You want to talk about dames? How about how moon-eyed you were over _Peggy_?" He spit the name out as if it were poison.

 

"Had her goddamned picture in your pocket and stared at it all the time. Sure wasn’t a picture of me you were looking at.”

 

“Jesus Christ, Buck! You could have said something! You broke my heart!  You - Fuck sake!” He clips Bucky in the face with the first punch, but aims into the wall with the second.

 

Furious, Bucky slugs Steve in the jaw with all his might with his left arm. The impact sends Steve reeling and he crashes into the remaining frame of their now thoroughly broken coffee table. Bucky lets his knees give out and he slides down to the floor. Things go eerily quiet and this is it and when he tilts his head and speaks it is Bucky - it is all Bucky - and his voice quivers, and he asks, “Why didn’t you look for me, Stevie?”

 

He looks into Steve’s eyes, direct, and he’s blinking, and it’s the watery blue he’s always known, and Bucky’s pouty moue, but the tears are full on falling instead of just being implied by his bedroom eyes, and the twist of his lips that suggests sauciness becomes anger.

 

“You want to talk about breaking hearts? You’d found me once, before, when you thought I was dead. You came looking and you found me.” Bucky’s lips twist impossibly, like this is what they were always holding in. “You were a super soldier. A goddamn real life superhero. So when - when they found me, it didn’t matter, for a while, what they did, you know, to me. Because Captain America was gonna come for me.”

 

He looks away and laughs bitterly. “Have Captain America come to save the day. That was the point of you, right?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky rubs at his face and looks back at Steve, who seems more now like the statue of himself that’s in Central Park than the real thing: His fingers had dug into the side table, four deep trenches down into the wood, and Bucky could see his nostrils flaring and snot and blood and sweat dripping down his face. Other than that, he gives no sign of listening, reacting, of being alive.

“Everybody dreams of that now, right? Captain America the hero, but, he was my best friend, for real, see, so he was actually coming for me! To snatch me from the jaws of death. But you didn’t come, Steve. Why didn’t you come? Was that the end of the line? I waited.”

 

A sound escapes Steve, something small and broken, a hitch in his breathing that Bucky hasn’t heard since they were teens.

 

“Don’t you think I hate myself for that every single fucking day? Every time I look at you, every time I feel that arm in mine, I know I’m the one responsible for it being there.” Steve pushes himself up and comes to stand over Bucky, glaring down at him. 

 

 “Not that I’d have known to look for you though, now would I? Because there was no way any  _ regular _ person would have survived that fall. But someone who’d been experimented on? Someone who was like me now?  _ They _ might have survived. Yet I didn’t know that, did I? Because you were  _ keeping shit from me!” _

 

Steve stomps angrily on the metal hand and the components crunch and whine.

 

“Oh, right, because I wouldn’t have looked like I was just trying to horn in on your action? Captain America 2.0? And how the fuck should I have known that the shit he gave me would have made me like you? Doesn’t matter though, because you just as much as admitted that you never even tried to come back!”

He flexes his fingers when Steve lets up and the servos whir and crack. Steve grins.

“You could have said something, Bucky, anything! Let me know something was going on with you, things were changing, you weren’t feeling right. We could have looked into it together, figured something out, maybe talked to Howard, but instead all I got was my best friend ignoring me and throwing up walls and then throwing himself off a fucking train!”

Bucky lashes out with his foot, kicking Steve square in the kneecap, and finally- _ finally _ -gets the scream of pain that he’s been wanting to hear from Steve as he falls, clutching the now dislocated joint.

 

“If I’d thought there was even a chance, you know I would, just like before. But you were dead! And in case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t exactly partying until I found you again. I very publicly crashed a plane. Into the Arctic. A few days after. And  _ died.  _ Did you bother reading that part in the files?” 

 

Steve’s voice cracks as he weakly hurls a piece of table frame at Bucky. “From my perspective, I was revived from doing my best to join you, and they immediately put a shield back in my hand and sent me back out to fight-”

 

-”and then you joined a social club.” The table lands on Bucky. “How torturous for you. Seems like you’re having a real tough time here. You want me to rescue you from all this luxury, then, run off to the Ukraine, or -”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yes, you stupid idiot. I don’t care about anything except where you are. Don’t you get that by now? I don’t know what move to make, Buck, how to atone, here. I woke up completely alone, all right? Everything I knew, everything I fought for, was gone. And I didn’t even want to wake up in the first place! What did I have to live for if you were gone? So tell me, how do I forgive myself for condemning you to seventy years of torture while I took a nap and woke up wanting for nothing? Anything you ask of me, I’ll do it. Because I don’t know how to make this right!”

 

And this is why Steve is Captain America because everything except remorse is sucked out of Bucky instantly.

 

“Fuck, Stevie, you’re the last person who needs to atone. I didn’t mean it.”

 

“You meant it. We both finally said what we meant.”

 

“I didn’t say atone.”

 

“I did.”

 

Bucky crawls over to Steve and grabs him by the side of the head, pressing their foreheads together. 

 

“You’re so fuckin’ stupid, you know that?”

 

“I love--” Steve says, and Bucky stops him with a kiss. 

 

Steve grabs him tight, a desperate sound coming from him as he kisses back, lets Bucky push him all the way down to the floor. They’re grinding together, both impossibly hard for all the emotional and physical damage they’ve just wrought, and then Bucky is pawing at his belt, yanking Steve’s pants down, fumbling at his own. 

 

“Steve, Stevie, I need you, please, I’m sorry,”

 

“Yes, Bucky, yes, I’m sorry too.”

 

Bucky somehow gets both of their pants down and has their cocks aligned together, stroking.

 

“Can we-” starts Steve quietly, then drops his head.

 

“Babe, what? Anything.” Bucky stops to push Steve’s hair out of his face. It’s never been this long. There’s a meaning in that, but he’s too tired to figure it out. 

 

Steve bites his lip before looking up at Bucky hovering over him, and damned if that’s not one of the hottest things Bucky’s ever seen. Even bruised and cut and bloodied, Steve Rogers is the most gorgeous man alive. In any century. Maybe especially when he’s roughed up.  

 

“I want…” he says, then makes direct eye contact with Bucky, always plunging headfirst into whatever he’s doing. “I want you to have me.”

 

“Steve?”

 

“Bucky Barnes, will you please fuck me?”

 

Bucky sucks in a breath and collapses onto Steve, who hisses as he irritates one of the myriad injuries littering his body.

 

“Steve...I, I’m not saying no, but, we haven’t done it like this before…”

 

“I’m aware.” Steve chuckles.

 

“And, while I want to give you whatever you want, are you sure our first time switching things up should be-” He waves his metal arm all around them, - “when we’re injured, and surrounded by the carnage of a  _ physical fight we just had,  _ and after we just said some truly awful stuff to each other, and we’re still bleeding, and-”

 

Steve reaches up and covers his mouth with his giant hand and smiles at him.

 

“I think it’s the  _ perfect time.” _

 

He takes the opportunity to slip his fingers into Bucky’s mouth. Bucky sucks automatically.

 

“Besides,” Steve adds as he frees his injured leg from his pants, kicks them down the other, “I can’t exactly do much with this knee, now can I?”

 

He withdraws his fingers.

 

“That’s not how it works and you know it, Steve  _ holy fucking shit yes okay fine yes that is the hottest thing I have ever fucking seen God.” _

 

Bucky nearly falls backward in his scramble to get his pants all the way off. Steve had taken his spit slicked fingers and moved them straight to his hole, swirling around it, and dipping just the tip of his index finger inside.

 

“Atta boy,” Steve smirks, “I knew you’d get with the program.” He’s still teasing himself as Bucky is already beginning to pant as he strips off the rest of his clothes.

 

“Let me get you naked first, we’re doing this right, Steve.”

 

“There’s a wrong way?”

 

Bucky’s face darkens. “There are many, many wrong ways.”

 

Steve tries to sit up. “Shit Buck, I’m so -”

 

Now his mouth gets covered.

 

“Don’t. I’m good, you’re good, we’re doing this, and I am going to make it  _ fantastic  _ for you. If you want more or less of anything you tell me. Same rules as always apply, just, role reversal. Now shut up so I can strip you.” 

 

For once Steve actually shuts up.

 

“God, Stevie.” A thrill of excitement ran through Bucky as he stares at Steve’s body. “Now I can really claim you. Make you mine. I didn’t want to mess up what we had, you do me so perfect, everything is so good. I didn’t want you to think I needed somethin’ else, but I also wondered how you would feel...gonna make you feel so good baby.”

 

He clambered over to the side table--one of the few items not damaged in their fight unless you count the depressions of Steve’s fingers (and they are keeping this table to remind them of the progress made today)--and yanked the drawer open, digging for the lube. He didn’t want to have to go searching for it later in the heat of everything. 

 

“Fuck, you’re perfect. So absolutely perfect.” He positions himself between Steve’s legs and hooks the one he didn’t hurt over his shoulder to help open Steve up, spread him wide, as he buries his face between his cheeks.

 

“Bucky!” Steve cries, his back arching as Bucky’s tongue pierces his hole. 

 

“Been waitin’, just waitin’ for you to ask. Gonna make you feel so good,” he says, slipping a finger into Steve. “Gotta relax for me, babe. Talk to me. What feels good? What doesn’t?” Bucky worked a second finger inside and Steve groans.

 

“God, Buck, you, your tongue, that…” he couldn’t finish.

 

“You want that again? You liked that?”

 

A shudder runs through Steve’s body and Bucky chuckles.

 

“Ask and you shall receive, Steve. Anything for you. You know that.”

 

Bucky lowers his head again and drags his tongue over Steve’s opening before pushing in once more. His hand wraps around Steve’s cock, stroking him gently as he licks and nips and sucks at him, drawing whimpers and moans from him as he pushes Steve higher, draws him closer to the edge. He carefully swirls his tongue around Steve’s tight pucker, feeling it loosen. He traces it along the inside, following the furled ridges and tasting the deep, heady musk. He flattens his tongue against the inside and pushes outward. He pulls out to the edge and tugs on his rim, making Steve keen. “I could eat you out all day, Stevie. Learned from the best. Love when you do this to me.”

 

“Christ, Buck, I’m--” He doesn’t finish the sentence before he’s coming, coating his stomach and clenching around Bucky. 

 

Steve is still on the high when Bucky rises to his knees and grabs the lube, coating himself generously.

 

“Look at me, babe. Need to see those baby blues when I take you.”

 

Steve makes a helpless sound and does as Bucky asks. 

 

“Need you, Bucky,” he pants, trying to force him to move by tightening his leg around Bucky’s waist.

 

“Shhh, need you too baby. If it turns out you don’t like this it’s totally fine but you  _ have  _ to let me eat you more now that I’ve tasted you, God. And I know you liked that.”

 

Bucky is uncharacteristically babbling, keeping up a stream of words, and Steve realizes he is nervous. He reaches one hand up to Bucky’s cheek and wraps the other around Bucky’s cock, covering his hand. 

 

“Buck, hey, Buck, kiss me. Everythin’s great.”

 

Bucky gives an embarassed laugh and leans down to kiss him. As they kiss, Steve guides Bucky’s cock into himself and Bucky gasps.

 

“See, there we go, just like anything else we do, together, perfect.” Steve smiles up at him. “Now show me what you got, seeing as how I’m incapacitated and all.”

 

 Bucky drops his head to his shoulder and snorts, but starts to move, slowly, just little circles at first. “That okay?”

 

“I dunno, you gonna keep talking or are you gonna get moving?” 

 

“You’re a dick.” Bucky adores this man. Starts to pump his hips. “That better, your majesty?”

 

Steve lounges back with a bored affectation, but the shift allows Bucky to hit his prostate dead on. “Hmm, it’s better, but perhaps you should ahhhhh--!”

 

Bucky smirks. “There we are. Keep going?”

 

“...ooh yes, Buck, do  _ that  _ again.”

 

“Your wish is my command, your highness.”

 

“Shut -- ah, yes --shut up, Buck.” He jams his fingers into Bucky’s mouth.

 

Bucky winks and sucks on them, continues thrusting.

 

Steve grins back evilly, draws those fingers through the excessive amounts of lube Bucky used, and shoves them unceremoniously into his ass.

 

“OhhhhhhmyGoddddddd StevenGrantRogers you are a genius!” 

 

Steve laughs and stretches up to kiss him. “Mmmmglad to hear it. Now how bout you do your genius a little more - oh! Never mind - just like that, just like that, Bucky, I’m gonna, I’m, Bucky-”

 

“Me too, doll, together, like everything else, right?

 

“Together.” He pants, and they manage to kiss each other as they come.

 


	4. Chapter 4

They wake next to each other, surrounded by the detritus of their fight. 

 

Now that the blinding haze of fury and passion has passed, Steve feels terrified of what happens next.

 

His fingers twitch toward Bucky’s but stop, not sure if he’s allowed. Bucky takes his hand.

 

Steve sighs, and it is the sigh of an old man; he feels every one of his years right now, spent dead or alive. He squeezes Bucky’s hand and their heads turn toward each other.

 

“You were right.” They each say at exactly the same time.

 

They burst into peals of laughter, painful full belly laughs that meld into high giggles, almost as cathartic as the fight itself. 

 

“You first.” Bucky says.

 

“No, you go first.” Steve, ever the gentleman.

 

“Well, who threw the first punch?”

 

“God, I don’t even know. I can’t believe we did that. Do we still have an apartment? Wait, are you okay?”

 

“Steve.” Bucky brushes his sticky hair back and cups his face. “I literally broke your kneecap and you’re asking if I’m okay. You fucking punk, I love you.”

 

Steve’s hand covers his. “You're sure? Still?

 

“Am I sure - Steve, you are literally the best person on the entire planet and I don’t know how I still get to have you. I am sure that I love you and we’re gonna get through everything. We may need to...vent...every so often, but I think we’re a little entitled, considering.”

 

“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

 

“Pal, would you stop being everyone’s savior for just a minute and do something for yourself? That doesn’t mean others have to suffer. You can let yourself be happy, to chase that. 

 

“Steve, you saved me. Hydra would still have me. Or I would be dead. But I sure as shit wouldn’t be here, with you.” He gets to his feet with a wince.

  


“You saved me from Zola, you saved me from Hydra, and you’re still trying to save me from myself.”

 

Steve’s eyes are closed, he won’t look at him.

 

 “Then why does it feel like I failed?”

 

“Because we’re the world’s oldest masochists? You never feel like you do enough and you’re Captain fuckin’ America, Steve.” He extends his hand down. “Can you get up?”

 

Steve pokes his leg slightly and screws up his face. “Not yet. Buck...come back down here?”

 

Bucky collapses to the floor far more gracefully than his battered body and metal arm should permit.

 

“We’ll stay down here as long as you need, pal.”

 

Steve hauls him closer, hugging him tight as can be. “When’d you get so smart, Buck?”

 

“Nah, that ain’t me.” He says into Steve’s chest. “That’s top of the line expensive S.H.I.E.L.D. therapy for ya.”

 

Steve laughs, a happy sound, then Bucky can practically hear the gears in his head whir like the plates in his arm, he’s thinking so hard.

 

“I guess...I guess you could say that once you got drafted, our fates were already set in some ways. I’ve hated myself all this time for being so stupidly eager to go to war, but you would’ve gone, either way. And if Erskine hadn’t changed me, then I couldn’tve saved you at Kreischberg. Then you’d be dead and I would’ve been dead soon anyway. And if - if Hydra hadn’t taken you, God, you would be dead again. And I’d be here without you. So, so, so, as horrible and fucked up as everything is that we went through, it brought us both here, to the future, where we could be _together_ and not worry about gettin’ arrested or beat up or killed for it too.”

 

Bucky raises their joined hands and kisses each of Steve’s knuckles in turn. “So maybe we can both try to let go a little bit?” he hedges. “It’s not gonna be easy, and it’s not like we can just forget or anything, but maybe we can focus more on the good parts now and leave the bad parts with the piles of bodies behind us?”

 

“That sounds real good, Buck.”

 

“And the future is pretty awesome anyway.” 

 

Steve nods. “The food is better.”

 

“There’s all the technology.”

 

“We’re rich.”

 

“Hmmm the Internet. And sex toys.”

 

“The Internet to tell us about sex stuff.”

 

“You sure you’re not feeling better yet?”

 

Steve squints and squirms around, hums.

 

“Gimme about five more minutes.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The next mission comes far too soon. They’re still processing the positive effects of beating the shit out of each other (not therapist sanctioned) and coming to terms with their crossing and divergent paths (therapist approved). 

 

Bucky still can’t believe they managed to flip the script on their years of suffering and torture. Steve Rogers has always been the most stubborn bastard on the planet. Bucky is slightly convinced that if the serum hadn’t been invented, that Steve would have willed himself into Captain America anyway. 

 

He’d thought that prying Steve’s self-imposed guilt complex away was an impossible task, but they’d just been coming at it from the wrong direction.

 

If there’s one thing history has shown, it’s that Steve Rogers will endure anything, absolutely anything, to keep Bucky Barnes by his side. He'd just needed to be convinced that there was no other way for them to wind up here.

 

And how could there be? They were both the products of scientists, war, ideological regimes. Not to mention both being frozen. Desperately closeted. Physical impossibilities that somehow came back together when everything else was long since ashes.  And who, despite everything (less so Bucky but he’s working on it) emerged with their brains and sanity relatively intact.

 

It was so easy to get bogged down in all the horrors they’d both experienced that made it difficult to remember that each painful chain of events led them directly to this day.

 

To the future.

 

They now had all the money they could need, with brilliant doctors and scientists and technicians at their beck and call. They could love each other openly without fear of repercussion. The advancement in technology gave Bucky an incredible arm.

 

All they had to do was shed some more blood to stay there. Save the world and an often ungrateful populace anytime a new menace reared its head.

 

Not a bad tradeoff considering it was possible that Steve and Bucky might find themselves together standing over the ashes of society if they managed not to get killed in the process.   Who knows how long they might live?

 

But when the call to assemble blares out the next day, pulling them from each other’s embrace in bed, as they suit up all Bucky can think of is that it’s too soon. 

 

Too soon since they’d broken each other open to forge a new union.

 

Too soon since they’d finally come to understand the damaged mind of the other.

 

Too soon since they’d patched each other’s wounds and looked to the future with real hope this time.

 

He smiles weakly over at Steve, who gives him a full USO poster smile back, still high from their mutual breakthrough.

 

But all Bucky can hear imposed over the alarm’s wail is _too soon too soon too soon._    

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’re gathering at the quinjet when Stark quips, “Where’s your better half?”

 

Bucky frowns, the dust is still settling, doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. He shrugs. “Ask him.”

 

“Rogers, report.”

 

Nothing from the comms. Stark tries again.

 

“Hey Cap, come in.”

 

“One more time with alliteration.” Banner pipes in from the jet. He’d been running the comms, they hadn’t even needed the Hulk for this. 

 

“Uhhh, Steve...signal?” Stark tries.

 

“Weak but I’ll give it to you,” Banner chuckles. “Nothing, huh? Maybe he lost it again. Hey guys, who’s got a visual on Steve?”

 

“Last I saw Cap he was on the rock outcropping, doing fine.” Wilson now. “Something wrong?”

 

“Not yet.” Banner hedges. “Anybody else?”

 

Bucky is getting antsy, he can’t just stand there and wait for them to roll call in. “I’ll go out there and check,” he says, jerking his head toward the rocks. “‘Case he’s out there taking a piss or something.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, tin man, go on, you’ve seen it plenty already, spare us.” Stark’s sass lacks the usual bite though, and Bucky can see his mouth is pinched. 

 

Bucky jogs toward the boulders, keeping his pace steady. There is nothing to panic about. Keep it together, Barnes.

 

As he rounds the edge, he can see there’s no Steve. But he _can_ see his earpiece lying on the ground. 

 

“You’re right guys,” he laughs, relieved, feeling the tension drain from his body instantly. “I’m looking at his comm right here. Dumb bastard’s probably headed back to you now ohhhh-”

 

“Oh what?” Stark barks into his ear. “Oh _what_?” 

 

He’d forgotten how strangely protective Stark is of Steve, even from him, especially from him. 

 

“Guys.” He has to force his voice to work. “Get out here now.”

 

He’s looking in horror at blood on the rocks, a lot of blood, please don’t be Steve’s blood, clear signs of an epic struggle, and pieces of Steve’s uniform, definitely, followed by two deep drag marks that just, end.

 

He’s on his ass in the sand without realizing it. “No no no no no no no-”

 

“Barnes!” A harsh voice snaps him out. “Report.”  

 

He’d been freaking out so hard he hadn’t heard the others approach. Not good.

 

“Blood.” He stammers, “Ah, lots of blood, unknown origin, um, the comm, on the ground.” The recitation helps him calm. “Pieces of uniform scattered, signs of struggle here, here, and here, indicating at least four attackers -”

 

“Why didn’t we hear any of this?” Barton interrupts and Bucky glares at him.

 

“I don’t know,” Romanoff joins, “But the tracks just stop, so, was there a craft? How did we not hear or see _that?”_

 

“I don’t like this.” Thanks, Tony, stating the obvious. “Bruce, I assume you're scanning the area?”

 

“On it.”

 

“I want boots on the ground and wings in the air, people. Fan out. I’m thinking most likely now that this mission was a distraction. Barnes -”

 

He snaps his fingers at Bucky, who’s forlornly picking up the scattered fragments of uniform, some of which are bloody. “You with us or not?” 

 

“I’m-” God was that a sniffle? Embarrassing. “I’m with you.” 

 

“Good. You, Clint, and Tash take separate points and fan out, me and Sam’ll take the air, and people, keep your damn comm links _on_ and _in._ We’ll get to the bottom of this. Avengers, uh, dissemble?”

 

Weak smiles around thank Tony for attempting to lighten the mood. Bucky stuffs the bits of Steve’s uniform into one of his many pockets and heads out. How the fuck did someone take Steve right out from under them? 

  


The only thing of use they find is a sniper nest that Clint uncovers. The flight back to the tower is heavy with Steve’s absence and filled with arguing. Bucky, for his part, cannot stop staring at Steve’s empty chair. The various permutations being argued are just floating around him. How could this have happened? He was right fucking there! 

 

Everyone is telling him not to blame himself (and there’s no way he could ever prove it) but as the smoke and debris and chaos settles and _where’s Cap? Who’s got visual on Steve, any contact?_ Their argument rings in his head 24/7 in a way no brainwashing ever could and _he knows, he knows_ in some fucked up way, Steve thinks he’s atoning. 


	5. Chapter 5

Rumlow runs the stun baton across the bars of the cage like an old time jailer.

 

“Wakey, wakey, Cap. It’s Christmas morning, I can’t wait anymore.” 

 

He taps obnoxiously on the bars. “Wake. Up. Rogers. Got a lotta people waitin on ya.” 

 

He jabs him in the ribs, hard. “He’s not fuckin dead already, is he, Rollins? What happened?” He starts prodding Rogers’ prone body more as Rollins strolls in. 

 

“Nahhh. If he were that easy to kill, we wouldn’t be here. Give im a few minutes. We hit im with the Hulk tranquilizer so that should last what? Like ten minutes on this bastard per round? Gimme that.”

 

Rollins grabs the taser from Rumlow and starts his own poking. “Wakeup, jackass!”

 

Rogers is stirring now, the smallest twitches. 

 

“Have ‘em get Pierce.” He hands the baton back and rubs his hands. “How you wanna do this?” 

 

“No one’s doing shit until the Director gets here. He gets first dibs on everything, you numbnuts.”

 

“I’m cool, I’m cool. It’s just - is this like a Hydra high holiday or somethin? Think we get a bonus?”

 

“I think he is our bonus.” Rumlow leers. I know I got some scores to settle with the good Captain.”

 

A groaning noise emanates from the floor, and they both turn to look.

 

Rogers cracks an eye open. “Nnnngh. You fuckers. W’ddya want?”

 

“Now, now, Cap, don’t get testy.” Rumlow sounds excited to have his sparring partner back. 

 

“Someone very important wants to see you.”

 

As if they’d timed it, Pierce chooses that moment to come strolling in.

 

“Sir!” 

 

Rollins snaps to attention. Kiss ass.

 

“Sir.” Rumlow intones.

 

Pierce paces the perimeter of the cage, clucking softly. 

 

His polished wingtips scuff on the cement floor.

 

He retrieves a metal folding chair and sits on it, backward. Then he gestures toward the cage and jerks his head.

 

He whistles softly, looking away while a scuffle and muttered cursing ensues before Rollins and Rumlow deposit Steve Rogers on his knees in front of him, hands cuffed behind him, glaring at Pierce.

 

He slowly, casually, turns his attention to the prone man before him. A single head movement makes Rollins and Rumlow withdraw, leaving a heaving Steve staring daggers at Pierce above him.

 

Pierce sighs, heavily. “Steven, Steven, Steven.” He intones, mournfully, a disappointed parent. He combs his fingers through Steve’s sweaty blond locks and Steve bares his teeth at him. 

 

“What are we going to do about this little problem, that we have, between us? Pierce continues, in that same condescendingly displeased tone, continuing to stroke Steve’s hair, almost absently.

 

“Fuck you, Pierce.” Steve would have spit on him if his mouth hadn’t been dried out from the drugs.

 

“Steven, please.” He purrs. “After all this time, call me Alexander. After all, we’re practically family.”  He moves his hand to grab Rogers’ face, squeezing his cheeks, turning his head side to side. He makes a considering noise.

 

“How...d’you figure that...nazi scum? Steve gets out.

 

Pierce’s hand tightens on his jaw enough to hurt. Steve can’t hold back a huff of pain.

 

“Steven, don’t be crude. It’s beneath you. Besides the fact that I’ve followed you closely since your awakening, we also share other  _ connections. _

 

_ “ _ I feel a certain fatherly responsibility to you, Steven. If I had been a bit more hands on, all of this might not be necessary. But alas, here we are, and we know how stubborn you can be..

 

“So you see, you’ve cost me quite a great deal here, Steven. We need to establish an equilibrium, here. How can we make things right between us, hmmm?

 

“There’s nothing - _ hnnnghhh _ \- between us.” Steve grits as Pierce’s fist tightens in his hair and drags his face up to meet his.

 

Pierce clucks again. “Now Steven that’s just categorically untrue. I’d say that I abhor a liar, but in the world of spycraft, we all lie sometimes. Now.”

 

He shoves Rogers’ head sideways onto his lap, trapping it against the back of the chair. A slow, pleased grin forms as he watches Rogers’ nostrils flare and breath speed up in fear. He knows what he’s thinking is about to happen. And he revels in the power that gives him. 

 

But not yet. 

 

A lesser man would blow his cards and go for brute dominance. Pierce is a diplomat. So he enjoys the flickers of fear that Rogers can’t contain, so close to the heat of his crotch. Pierce knows that he can smell that this power play arouses him. But he gives the Captain credit. The darting eyes and flaring nostrils are the only tells he gives up. 

 

It’s going to be so, so, fun finding out what makes Captain America break.

 

He clears his throat and inches back on the chair, adjusting the seat of his pants, watching Rogers’ eyes follow his movements. 

 

“As I was saying,” he continues, unruffled, “we have several issues that need to be settled between us, Steven. I hope that during your time here we can come to some amicable agreements, but, an old soldier like you knows that war is hell, mmm? I’d hate to resort to drastic measures, but we’re talking about the fate of the world here, Steven, freedom and power. The weak and the strong. Who will rule and who will serve. My associates and I will persuade you by any means necessary, but I do hope that you will come around to our way of thinking on your own, like so many of your compatriots have already done.” 

 

His roving rands have begun to pet over Rogers’ face, tracing his sharp cheekbones, his heavy eyebrows, the full lips that are pinched over his gritted teeth. Mostly because it unsettles Rogers. Mostly because he can.

 

“You see,” he continues, voice calm as ever while Rogers’ breath is hitching further and coming faster even as he tries to remain still as a statue. “I think that we got off to rather a bad start, you and I, seeing as how Hydra isn’t the same organization you once knew. I think that once you’re reeducated on the true nature of our great organization, you’ll see things differently.”

 

He smiles down benevolently, caresses a cheek. Like this, Rogers is quite pretty. All wide blue eyes and pink lips and pale skin.

 

He can see the shadow of the boy he was before he got the serum.

 

A fighter, either way.

 

Either way, Pierce will own him.

 

Rogers tries to shake him off. “Are you quite done pontificating? Bring back Rumlow and that other asshole or something. At least they don’t have delusions of grandeur. They’re just sadists.”

 

Pierce laughs now, well and truly laughs for the first time in awhile. “Oh my boy, if it’s sadism you want, you’ll find plenty of that here.  _ Order through pain _ is not just a catchphrase. Only through suffering can we give up the self to the good of the organization.” 

 

“Oh yeah?” Rogers huffs. “And what suffering have you done, Pierce? Or lemme guess, that’s just for the underlings?”

 

Pierce grins back at him, wide and toothy. “My boy, my boy, every day we spend opposing each other is pain to me, if only you could understand. Captain America was created to be the very best. And it pains me to see the best being wasted. Being misused and corrupted by petty politics, again, still.” Pierce hangs his head and shakes it as if in shame.

 

“I know this is a lot for you to take in, Steven. And again, some of the fault is mine. If I could have gotten to you before that tool Fury, or even intervened earlier, well...no use crying over spilt blood. We’ll get there. We will.”

 

At this he nods, pats Steve’s cheek and stands. 

 

Steve’s suddenly unsupported head slams to the seat of the chair.

 

“Whoopsie.” Pierce semi giggles, looking back, already exiting.

 

“Get Captain Rogers all set up,” he barks to Rollins and Rumlow, who have rematerialized. “Get ready for tomorrow. And initiate Protocol 3.”

 

Steve is hauled to his feet for the briefest second before being stuffed back down into the cage. His hands are still cuffed behind him. 

 

“Pierce, you asshole, what happens tomorrow? What’s Protocol 3? Why don’t you just tell me? You know I’m going to kill every one of you, right? I mean, I was already going to but now it’s with my bare hands. I’ll enjoy it.

 

“You hear me, Pierce? I’ll enjoy it? I look forward to killing you and your two braindead Chippendale dancers here - fuck!”

 

He heard a nasty chuckle, whether from Rumlow or Rollins he couldn’t tell as one of them shoved a needle into his neck and then he didn’t hear anything at all.


End file.
